Where will the Northern Lights be visible tonight? The Northern Lights may be seen tonight in the continental U.S. after space weather forecasters predicted a small geomagnetic storm. There’s also a chance that there could be further activity on Sunday, Oct. 27 and into next week.
The Northern Lights are caused by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. As charged particles strike Earth’s magnetic field, they accelerate down its magnetic field lines at the north and south poles to create ovals of green and red.
When To See The Northern Lights
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center is forecasting that a G1 geomagnetic storm will make aurora visible in clear skies from northern-tier U.S. states could see aurora.
It predicts a G1 storm with a Kp 4.67 magnitude between 03:00-06:00 UTC on Saturday, Oct. 25, 10:00 p.m. EDT, on Friday, Oct. 24, until 01:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Oct. 25.
For the very latest, check NOAA’s 30-minute forecast and X account as well as its Aurora view line, which is always available for tonight and tomorrow night.
Where To See The Northern Lights
A G1 geomagnetic storm is the weakest classification, with continental U.S. states within the aurora’s view line including Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine.
From these U.S states you can expect to see aurora in the distance, to the north. However, there’s a chance it could be only photographic aurora, which would require a long exposure image taken by a camera or smartphone to detect. “Night mode” on smartphones works well, with a long exposure of between five and 10 seconds usually enough to produce a pleasing image of the aurora.
Upcoming Aurora Activity?
There’s also reason to believe there could be more significant geomagnetic storms over the next few nights. After a quiet week or so on the sun, an X3.3 class solar flare was detected by NASA’s satellites on Thursday, Oct. 24, which was quickly followed by a lesser M1.2 class solar flare and, on Friday, Oct. 25 by an M1.1 class solar flare.
That means the sun has woken up again, and an active region in the sun could produce more solar activity. Crucially, those active regions are Earth-facing, so if any coronal mass ejections — clouds of charged particles — are hurled from the sun, there’s a good chance they could interact with Earth’s magnetic fields in a few days.
The even better news is that the active regions in question are the same ones that produced the intense G5 geomagnetic storm on Oct. 10-11. The fallout from the Oct. 24 solar flare could strike Earth’s magnetic field around Oct. 27-28, though forecasters won’t know that until just before any activity.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
